Rare earth elements include seventeen chemical elements, specifically fifteen lanthanides, scandium and yttrium. Rare earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare earth elements and non-rare earth elements. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, rare earth magnets produce stronger magnetic fields than ferrite magnets or alnico magnets. More than 60,000 metric tons of rare earth neodymium materials are produced annually from mining operations. This material is primarily used in the manufacture of magnets for hard drives, electric motors, refrigeration compressors, generators, power tools and many other consumer goods.
Rare earth magnets are typically not recycled however. In the case of hard drives, more than 500 million computer hard drives are manufactured annually, while few are recycled. Disposal operations primarily include shredding hard drives with e-waste recyclers. Steel and aluminum are typically electromagnetically sorted from the shredded material stream for recycling. The remaining components, including the rare earth magnets, are treated as waste.
The sheer number of hard drives manufactured each year represents a significant portion of rare earth magnets available for recycling. High throughput, low cost systems for rare earth magnet recycling could supply more than one-third of the demand for rare earth materials in the United States. Accordingly, there remains a continued need for systems and methods for the recycling of rare earth magnets from hard drives and other devices.